Snow!

Oregon got a huge blast of winter weather and I am loving it.

Notice the howling wind pushing the snow across the road. Even the bushes are pointing slightly to the left.

Squirrel chowing down with a wintery blast all around.

Icicle's hanging from the top of my place. Ignore the terrible hung Christmas light.

Watching mothernature.

I enjoy a good black and white photo every once in a while and this one turned out well. The light at the end of the tunnel.

Day 3 - Fireplace

Well I skipped a day as the week has been a bit hectic. So now to figure out what type of mantle to put up on the fireplace. Then installing the wood fireplace insert. So far is looking pretty good.


I was a bit hesitant as I was hoping more reds and blues would be in the rock, although after the moisture came out, it seemed to give it more color.

Leaf sucker

My roommate and I had a crazy idea and we could so see this on a comedy site. I bought a leaf blow and sucker, which I normally wouldn't get but you don't understand just how many leaves fall on our front and back yard. On the sucker piece they give you an ultra small bag that would fit maybe 1/50th of the leaves in the front. That would be insane! Sooooo, we had some extra dust collector tubing from the shop. We grabbed some duck tape and off we went.


After a little magical duck tape we got our invention up and running. The greatest thing about this concept, unlike paper or plastic bags you can really pack the cut up leaves to the bottom.


Packed and cut up leaves.


Imagine this whole yard with leaves... And then realize they all went into that bin. The chopping and packing definitely helped and provides a funny story. :)

Day 1 - Fireplace

Crazy Saturday, so all of the bricks down to the fireplace opening have been removed, cinder blocks were laid on top, and then finally were covered. This was from the huge crack in the middle of the fireplace (previous post shows) and could continue downward.


Fireplace brick, we are thinking we may clean these up a bit during the spring to build up a firepit in the back yard that hopefully a porch will be surrounding. We shall see how it goes.


This is after a day of drying. Hopefully Monday it will be dried so the next process can continue. You can sorta see where brick removal stopped and cider blocks were replaced. The piece of wood above is where we are going to hang a mantel (haven't decided what).

Day 0 - Fireplace

My roommate and I have been talking about putting a wood insert in for a long time, and finally I went down and spoke to someone on what is involved. This will be quite a project, so what better way but to document the process over the weekend. :) First project will be replacing the brick with river rock, so time for some destruction. 3:)

So the first image will be of Day 0 of the firecode hazard removal. Had it cleaned out last year so it has been prepped for the weekend's day of brick removal.